


The Unexpurgated Edition

by mintpearlvoice



Category: Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:03:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're giving an account for the High Council of Gallifrey, to be placed in the Presidential Archives of Gallifrey, you have to leave a lot out. Especially when your best friend's mother is on the High Council of Gallifrey and her brother is a Presidential Archivist, and you're absolutely sure that both of them will be reading anything you write. <br/>Here, therefore, for posterity and our memoirs and memories, is an unexpurgated version of recent incidents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I met Julie when she was still calling herself the Wireless Operator because she hadn't thought of a good human-sounding name yet, when she crash-landed a Spitfire into one of the interactive outdoor exhibits at the museum I worked at, the day all the dummies in the museum came to life.

Julie, for all the wonderful things about her, is terrible at flying. I suspect it was pure luck that she landed on Earth in the first place, God Herself telling us that it was jolly well best for everyone involved if we started being friends already.  
Anyway, the Spitfire was designed in 1934, powered by a Merlin engine, one of the most-used planes during the Battle of Britain, one of the best-known fighter planes of the era, over twenty thousand built-  
(Julie tells me to get on with it.)

I was scrambling to get away from a whole lot of Suddenly Living Plastic Fascists- and then the Spitfire, and then Julie.  
Well, I knew it was a Spitfire the moment I saw it- after all, I'd seen pictures, and I'd restored quite a few old ones- flown them, too, even.  
So while I was standing there, caught between terror and fascination, I noticed this girl. She had beautiful curly blonde hair, like a storybook princess, and the sun beamed down on it and made it shine like polished gold. And she was wearing this very bright orange pullover, practically neon.  
She unfurled a bright umbrella and told me to run, and it seemed like the most sensible thing I'd heard all day.  
Julie had brought this shoebox-sized gadget to stop the living plastic from being animated, but its engine had broken.  
And while I may have had no job and no future, I was brilliant at repairing engines.

 

What I didn’t tell the Council: I adored Julie from the moment I met her. Best friends at first sight, really. She was brave and brilliant and mad and funny and clever, and I had this odd sort of niggling hunch that the rest of my life would tangle itself with her existence. 

What I also didn't tell the Council: how beautiful she was. How elegant and graceful and glamorous.  
And I liked her outrageously bright sweater. It was the sort of thing I'd never wear myself, but I loved it on Julie. She glowed like a sunset.


	2. Chapter Two

And then- oh, it's all muddled up, I think that's what happens when you try to fit the entire Time Vortex in your head at once. And Julie and I are trying, really, even though she was getting tortured for most of it.  
The Daleks cloned Hitler. As someone who's reading history at University, I could tell you that that's a horrid idea. Why would you want a commander who's already lost a war?  
But they stole Hitler from the moment before his death, and they turned him into a Dalek, because he was "one of the most famous humans ever to sustain the level of hate required for full Dalek conversion." 

And then- do you know what those terrible idiots did then? They went to 2409 A.D. and invaded Europe.  
And now it's The Month That Never Was, and no one remembers it except immortals and time travelers and Gallifreyans and Daleks, but humanity called it World War Three and the Second Battle of London. 

 

I believe the Daleks learned three important lessons from their failed invasion of Earth. It was two in the version I told the Council, but I think the third is important as well.

You do not tangle with the British Isles.  
You do not tangle with the British Isles and expect them to fold like cardboard, even if you've already invaded Paris.  
You are not permitted to hurt Julie.

I just broke my pencil point. Bother. 

 

Julie found a pen.


	3. Chapter 3

We started spying. First for the English, then for the Alliance of Sentinent Races, or the Aries for short. Spying and sabotage and supply-delivering.  
Only, on what started out like an ordinary madcap run, dodging time fire and location bullets, the space dilation barrier or whatever-it-was over Paris paralyzed our ship and started bringing her down.   
Julie checked the monitors, glanced back at me. "They've caught the electrical signal of my hearts. They know there's a Gallifreyan aboard- Maddie, I'm going to have to parachute out of the TARDIS."  
"You won't let me go with you?" As soon as I said it, I knew it was foolish.  
"No. One, I won't have you sacrificing yourself; two, you need to keep the TARDIS steady so I can jump." She strapped on her parachute as she spoke. It was orange, bright sunset Julie orange.  
"Julie-" I gasped, and all the words that could ever be spoken between two people who were very fond of each other seemed to catch in my throat and choke me.   
"Kiss me, Hardy," she said with her usual madcap flippancy. So I did- on the cheek, though I longed to stray closer to her lips and then keep on going.

I stood at the controls, making sure the TARDIS didn't move. She looked back at me and winked- and then she jumped. 

(When I tell anyone on Gallifrey about Julie, I always leave out the kisses.)

As soon as she'd left, the whirring sound of the engines started up again, and a hologram of Julie appeared. 

"Right, then," she said, her accent as plummy as ever. "Maddie, this is Emergency Protocol 16. It'll take you home to your own century, your own time, the day after I picked you up, quick as you please- and then just leave the TARDIS, don't even think of flying it anywhere, I don't even want to think about what would happen if the Daleks got their hands on it. I mean it, Maddie.  
You're my best friend, and I'm sure you'll be fine. Go be human. Go be splendid.  
She smiled, and her smile was a bit wobbly. "Fly the TARDIS home, Maddie. Fly home for me." And then she vanished.   
"Come on, old girl, let's turn around. Let's go back, let's get Julie-"   
It's not a mere mechanical issue. She just isn't listening. I try some of the combinations I've seen Julie use, all the illogical ones that aren't in the manual. Nothing  
And then I started crying. Not from fear, but from anger. I'm so bloody furious that all of it just squeezed out my eyes and I just started wailing. 

They were hurting Julie, torturing her, maybe even killing her, and there was nothing I could do about it. And I was angry at the Daleks, too. What kind of pure slimy horribleness does it take to look at the universe and say you decide who gets to live and who doesn't? How hateful and nasty do you have to be to want to exterminate all life in the universe? I was boiling mad, not to mention blubbering, and then-

When I try to remember it, because I probably should, all of it, the only thing I can recall is a sort of green light flashing behind my eyelids. It was as bright as the heart of a star, but it never hurt to look at it, not even once. 

Julie says I glowed. Like a goddess.   
The soul of verity.


	4. Chapter 4

The next thing I knew: I slumped into Julie's arms, suddenly weak, barely able to hold myself up, and she staggered back a few steps and nearly crashed into a wall.  
It was so silent, terribly silent.  
Righting myself, I caught a glimpse of metal and then blanched. "The Daleks-"  
"They're dead, it's all right, you were splendid- take me home, please."Julie slung an arm about my shoulders, and I steered her back into the TARDIS. The launch sequence came to my hands as if I'd known them all my life.  
Oh, Julie looked awful. Pale and frightened and far too thin, holes in her sweater, burns on her collarbones and her hands, but "We are a splendid team," she murmured, leaning heavily against the console. Already, she was starting to play at being her old self again. And then, dramatically, "Kiss me, Maddie."  
Of course I wanted to, but-  
I leaned forward and gave her a chaste peck on her pursed lips; before I could pull away, she tangled her chapped hands in my hair and kissed me breathless. It was the sort of kiss that could have gone on all day, easily. Literally and figuratively timeless. I didn't want to stop kissing her, not ever.  
And then she tried to slide off the flat bit on the console and stand up on her own and nearly fainted from the pain- so off we went to the infirmary, me pushing Julie in this lovely old wheelchair that had presented itself in the elevator, draping as much of myself over her as I could as a sort of substitution for kissing.

What I didn't tell the Council:  
I stayed with Julie that night because her dreams frightened her. Her hands flew to her throat as if she was being strangled, and she'd let out the most heartsplitting yell. Each time, I roused her, tended to her, held her until she could fall asleep again.   
Oh, Julie-  
Someday you'll have to tell me what they did to you. You'll have to write it down, at least.  
Promise me that, please?

What I told the Council:  
We weren't sure what I could do yet, so we told high command that we'd got all the Daleks to blow themselves up by accident, and then we stayed in the TARDIS until Julie could walk again. 

What I didn't tell the Council:  
Yes, and I barely left her side.

The good part was that I had you with me, Julie. Every time you took a turn for the worse again, I could do something about it.  
If some fearful memory made your gaze turn distant suddenly, I could wrap a blanket around our shoulders and hold your hands until the fear dissolved; if you were lost in a healing trance, I could stroke your forehead and drip tea with loads of honey between your lips one teaspoonful at a time until you were strong enough to open your eyes and smile at me again.

I didn’t have to be helpless.   
(I never want to be helpless again.)

Oh, Julie! You always think people are going to leave you, that they'll fly from Neverland back to London, back to their safe little lives. But I'm not Wendy, I’m Tinkerbell. I'll stay with you until I die.  
And I'm writing this down for you because I want you to remember it:  
I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU ALWAYS. Until the engine of the machine that is Maddie runs down for the last time. You're wild and impossible and everything about me flies steadier when you're around. 

It's like finding your best friend, falling in love.


End file.
